


From Above, From Within

by Nymphaeus



Series: SephirothWeek 2020 [5]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Sephiroth, Aliens, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Lovecraftian, Body Horror, Eldritch, Eldritch Abominations (Cthulhu Mythos), Eldritch Horror Sephiroth, Fear, Horror Elements, Horror and Humour, Inspired by H. P. Lovecraft, Life is going to get weird for Cloud Strife, M/M, Other, POV Cloud Strife, Sephiroth Appreciation Week, Sephiroth Appreciation Week 2020, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:14:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27252505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nymphaeus/pseuds/Nymphaeus
Summary: Sephiroth Appreciation Week 2020 - Day 6: OtherworldlyCloud Strife, a young man without many future prospects, lives alone with his mother on a farm in the middle of nowhere. When one night a meteor crashes into one of their fields, his life is quickly spiralling into a nightmare of strange dreams, unexplained phenomena and general weirdness, all of which make him fear for his safety and his sanity.(Chapter 1 was written to fill a prompt for Sephiroth Appreciation Week 2020, but the story can be read on its own.)
Relationships: Sephiroth/Cloud Strife
Series: SephirothWeek 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1982950
Comments: 18
Kudos: 80





	1. The Crash

**Author's Note:**

> I know, this is Sephiroth Week and...I hope this still qualifies? He's in this? Look, he's clearly still the focus, kinda.
> 
> Honestly, I just wanted to write some Lovecraftian-weirdness. (You know, without all the racism?)  
> The work that inspired this the most was probably The Colour out of Space, but I read that quite a while ago and I'm not sure which details are direct references to that, or to another one of Lovecraft's works. I had some time on my hands and read a lot of Lovecraft like two years ago?
> 
> I split this into multiple chapters, because it got too long and I was too busy to finish it as a oneshot.  
> So, instead, this will update even after Sephiroth Week is over.
> 
> That's all for now. Hope you enjoy!

The small farmhouse in which Cloud lived together with his mother, as the single other resident, was quite a far way off from the nearest town, and almost entirely surrounded by fields excluding a small woodland area to the south. For a while, when Cloud had been younger, they had a few live-in farmhands who had worked the fields and done some of the household work. Even though Cloud’s mother had done her best at the time to hide it, they had fallen on hard times some years back and afterwards simply couldn’t afford employing more help – even where it was dearly needed. And since Cloud was no longer a teenager, he could do much of the daily chores on the farm. Not that they did much farming at all these days, just enough to sustain themselves and just enough to keep them above water by selling a portion of the few crops they still planted. Many of their fields lay barren these days. They didn’t keep many animals anymore, either, a few chickens for the most part.  
  
Growing up, Cloud had never made many plans for his future anyways. For a short while he had entertained the thought of just enlisting and leaving this place for good, but since his mother wasn’t getting any younger either, he didn’t have the heart to just go and leave her behind, not when he knew she would have trouble keeping up with all the work. If not right now, then certainly in a few years. So, a farm-life for Cloud it was. He figured, it wasn’t the worst life to lead. Terribly uneventful, was what he would use to describe it, if anyone ever asked. Albeit, no one ever did.  
  
These were the nightly thoughts, that floated through Cloud’s head, when he lay awake in bed at night, staring at the ceiling of what had been his room since childhood, although it had undergone renovations since then. In Cloud's opinion, he had lucked out and gotten the room with the best location in the house. It faced the fields and their small vegetable garden and that small patch of land next to it which they had reserved for planting sunflowers. As it was the season, the sunflowers stood in full bloom, although they were due to whither within the next few weeks. But, currently they were still the least bleak thing he got to see all year and their vibrant yellow blossoms never failed to lift his spirits, especially now that the end of the summer months was drawing nearer. Furthermore, he had a nice view of the nearby small piece of forestland which had with each passing year turned swampier and swampier, and seemed to only ever grow swampier since.  
  
Tonight, Cloud was not all too plagued by mid-night musings and regrets about missed opportunities and wasted youths. It had been a warm day, not uncommon for this late in the summer. After a good days work of mostly cleaning farm equipment, he had excused himself to bed early after dinner. It had been a particularly annoying ordeal, especially since Cloud hadn’t quite understood the necessity of the task – “It’s only going to get dirty again anyway.” – but his mother had insisted it was indeed very necessary to keep everything nice and in order and more importantly, functioning.  
  
Cloud had sunken into the early stages of a drowsy half-sleep, verging right on the cusp of consciousness, when that which he would later only refer to as ‘the incident’ occurred. Admittedly, even if he had been fast asleep, the spectacle would have undoubtedly woken him up.  
  
Everything started with the noise. Half-dulled senses registered the whirring sound only faintly and so, at first, it was easily ignored and Cloud readily enough accepted it as part of the dreamscape he was slowly sinking into. However, when it quickly swelled, it had roused Cloud enough from his state of lethargy that he was certain it was not part of some bizarre dream, and that he was still pretty much awake and that he was actually hearing, what he was hearing. With eyes tiredly blinking open, he sat up in his bed.  
  
It was a high-pitched whizzing sound, the likes of which Cloud had never heard before in his entire life. It was certainly coming from somewhere outside. Cloud had become accustomed to hearing many strange noises in the night. After all, he had grown up on a farm surrounded by the opposite of civilization. So, he was used to quite a number of strange sounds coming out of the dark. He had also been taught and told to ignore them and let the unknown do its thing – a credo every single one of their neighbours, also mostly farmers, believed in. It had worked out well for all of them.  
  
This noise in particular, however, was doing its hardest not to be ignored. Sounding far-off, at first, but in a moment of horrible sleep-dulled realization, Cloud noticed, that it grew suspiciously louder.  
  
Cloud's ears were ringing, the noise taking on a frequency that was bordering on painful and the way in which the strange sound was echoing throughout his skull, made it almost feel as if it originated right from within his head.  
  
The noise was the one thing and Cloud would have maybe been inclined to just wait it out and never think about it again, when it would inevitably stop, but that was when the lights started. Through the half-drawn curtains shone the familiar light of the moon. With almost no man-made structures in the near vicinity, the nights surrounding the farm were deep dark, the moon and stars the only significant light source for miles around. Which coincidentally was the other reason for people not wandering out and about, investigating every strange noise one happened to hear in the dead of night.  
  
Now, there danced strange lights in front of his window, illuminating Cloud's bedroom in the most peculiar ways. Bright rays of unknown origin and varying shades including, but not limited to all the colours of the rainbow and tones Cloud could swear he had never seen before, seemed to pulse arrhythmically, growing faint, before flaring up again. Maybe he was asleep, afterall.  
  
As it was, Cloud was taken over by a mixture of curiosity and fear.  
  
The spectacle of the dancing lights made his head swim and his stomach churn, if he concentrated on them too long and the noise was reverberating in his ears, loud and relentless. It had risen to such a crescendo, that Cloud had to cover his ears with his palms. Whatever it was, it was drawing nearer. The lights frantic performance intensified with the intensity of the roaring.  
  
And then came the crash – a loud booming sound so terribly ear-piercing, that the shock of it went through Cloud’s whole body. And truly, it was as if he could have felt an actual shock wave shake him to his core.  
  
The lights suddenly stopped, and Cloud’s room fell in complete darkness.  
  
Cloud was in shock and shaking. Cold sweat had formed on his skin and his mouth felt dry. Luckily, at one point he remembered breathing and against the sudden dead silence of his room it sounded almost as estranged as the bizarre whirring had.  
  
What had just happened? Should he run and wake his mother. Had she heard? Did she see? Should he go and see if she was already awake?  
  
Almost as in trance, Cloud threw away his bedsheets, got up and hurried to his window. With shaking fingers, he grasped at the curtains and jerked them aside. The world was pitch black. Cloud couldn’t see a thing, but to his utmost horror, the lights started anew. First, he thought he only imagined the weak glow, which began emanating from a point somewhere in the near distance. Pulsing, with a slow rhythm it began to heighten in intensity, but it was nothing compared to the radiant light show Cloud had witnessed earlier.  
  
The source of the light, dull and almost spectral in its saturation, appeared to be some sort of object in the nearby fields. Cloud could barely make out what it was. Like faint mists, the lights hung in the air surrounding the thing, obscuring Cloud’s vision even further, making the object almost appear as if it were moving.  
  
Cloud tried to focus in on the strange object, but his eyes had trouble adjusting to the ever shifting wavering of the streaks of light in the dark and his mind had trouble determining what exactly it was that he was looking at. What was he supposed to recognize? It was vaguely spherical in shape, and at first glanced appeared to be made of some rock like material.  
  
An unknown object falling from the sky at night? A meteor crash? Was that what he had witnessed just now?  
  
Cloud had heard about that happening before. But weren’t meteors supposed to burn out in the atmosphere? And in those rare cases in which they didn’t – weren’t they supposed to only leave tiny remnants behind, if they made it to the planet’s surface at all? Nothing but a mall piece of cosmic stone? If it had really fallen out of the sky, then maybe he and his mother had been really lucky, it hadn’t hit their small house, because the thing – the meteorite? – whatever it was, appeared to be fairly large in size. Definitely larger than just a stone. Cloud couldn’t be sure without actually venturing out there and confirming for himself – something he had the mind not to do – but the object appeared to be larger than him. If not in size, then certainly in mass.  
  
Cloud was still clutching the curtains between quivering fingers, as he scrutinized the peculiar thing. And as his eyes adjusted to the weirdness of the lights and their mesmerizing ballet, he was overtaken by another horrible realisation. Cloud’s blood ran cold. The suspected movement of the object, which Cloud first had deemed to be a figment of his imagination, due to the strange lights playing tricks on his eyes and his mind by creating an optical illusion in the dim light, was coming from the object itself.  
  
The object had moved before and it was moving now.  
  
Another shudder ran through Cloud. And a shudder ran through the sphere.  
  
Cloud’s breath caught in his throat.  
  
What had appeared to be solid mass began to lose integrity right before his very eyes.  
  
In the same moment, from below the dull throb which the loud noise had left in his eardrums, sprang forth an entirely different sensation. The feeling was so foreign, it was almost impossible to describe. Uncomfortable, but only delicately bordering on painful, it was a feeling within Cloud’s head, as if gentle fingers were exploring the inside of his skull, stroking against his brain, gently mapping the ridges and valleys with a curious touch. At the same time, a wicked realization hit him. Granted, it was a weird thought to have, and it didn’t make any sense, but somehow, he was overcome with the notion that whatever was out there, knew he was there. It knew.  
  
Cloud was shivering. Fear had him as tight in its grip, as he did the floral-applicated curtains of his bedroom window.  
  
The mass seemed to swell from within, rearing up as if struggling to contain itself. Bulging and bubbling under the strain of something from its inside that was pushing against the membrane of an overstuffed cocoon from which unshapely limbs threatened to burst free of their glutinous confinement. But the breach was not imminent. Instead, with a throb, the matter seemed to first collapse in on itself, writhing and losing its instable form, all the while shivering in obscene contractions. The whole spectacle was revolting, but Cloud couldn’t force himself to look away. He could barely continue drawing shaking breaths, as he watched on in horror, the sensation like that of fingers moving against his brain never leaving.  
  
As, finally, the thing began to shift and from the amorphous matter, discernible shapes began to break free, its colour began to change as well. The thing Cloud had figured to be the colour of rock or stone, although he couldn’t tell if it had been a grey, or more of a brown, perhaps even reddish, was quickly losing colour, until it had become almost white, it was as if it were drained of all its pigmentation.  
  
Were these horrid transformations following patterns according to some odd design? Its fluctuations appeared to be random, but from time to time Cloud thought he could make out familiar shapes within the chaos, bearing the mark of oddly organic looking anatomies. Some resembled body parts and other components of animals, only that they were multitudes and resisted proper classification, especially since they were constantly forming and reforming in a way that Cloud’s eyes and mind could hardly keep up.  
  
Wing-like structures sprung outwards, stretching and spreading towards all sides and towards the sky, only to wither away in an instant. Serpent-like tentacles wound and unwound themselves, coiling around the main mass of the thing, before slithering and wriggling along the ground and through the air, only to be absorbed back into it.  
  
The insistent stroking along the walls of Cloud’s head also seemed to intensify. What was almost gentle at first, had become frantic in the explorations of his insides. There was still no actual pain, but now there was certainly something akin to a dull pressure thrumming in his head, as if someone were playing the drum against the confines of his skull, it was a sickening contrast to the persistent feeling of something toying gently with its softer contents.  
  
As if paralysed, Cloud watched the dreadful activities outside of his window, mesmerized by the ghastliness of the sight offered to him. After a while, the intense shifting slowed down, as if resting – contemplating? As if it had finally settled on something concrete among all the terrifying potentialities of its purpose. To Cloud’s dismay, there was something unsettlingly familiar in the vague impression of its current configuration and when Cloud finally determined why, the recognition made him gasp and recoil in disgust.  
  
The mass was beginning to look unsettlingly human.  
  
The more Cloud concentrated on it, the more he was sure he could recognize the shape of a torso among the mutable matter. That was when he also began to suspect, although it was more of a terrible apprehension, then based on actual confirmation, that the thing must have taken on the colour of pale skin, but glistening as if covered in the sheen of some gooey liquid.  
  
As if in excitement, the mass shuddered and spasmed and, sure enough, from what Cloud must now admit was clearly a human-shaped body, appendages began to emerge. Arms, misshapen and dangling at first, elongated, growing palms from which fingers seemed to sprout as claw-like and bestial flowers, before they shrunk back to become slender with delicately shaped joints. Some of the tentacle-like appendages that had wriggled across the ground, twisted around each other and once completely entangled, fused together to serve as the newly created being’s legs, solid looking and strong. The worst of it all, was that Cloud could now clearly discern the formation of a head. And after only a few minutes, the thing resembled a featureless display mannequin.  
  
The torso was bubbling, as it began to mould itself further, having taken on the general consistency of molten wax made mutable under a candle’s flame. The being that was ever so steadily creating itself, was not clearly male or female, but it was certainly trying to rectify the fact, as it displayed characteristics of either sex, with various undefined arrangements in between, in frenzied succession. Cloud felt heat rise in his cheeks. Although it was entirely obscene, there lay something carnal in the act and observing it made Cloud’s skin crawl with a sense of vaguely displaced shame. It made him all too aware of his own body. Cloud was dressed in pyjamas, but watching this, he felt incredibly exposed.  
  
Cloud was spared no further shame, as his eyes were drawn over the being’s physique, which had settled on a distinctly male aligned design with a artistically swung collar bone, strong arms, a heavenly sculptured chest, and a toned abdomen, leading down into sensual hips with muscular thighs, and further down – Cloud forced himself to look away. Confused and with an almost achingly beating heart, Cloud at least averted his gaze, instead trying to watch the rest of the strange mutation unfold.  
  
The facial features underwent rapid refinement, changed and sharpened so quickly, that Cloud’s eyes could hardly follow the transformation taking place, even though it was the only thing he allowed his gaze could focused on. What had looked like someone had stretched an elastic cloth in a mockery of skin over a vaguely humanoid skull, morphed into high cheek bones and a strong jaw line, a straight nose and elegantly curved lips. Eye-sockets began to form under the skin, closed and hollow-looking until they filled out with the fluidity of a liquid being poured inside. At the same time, hair like silk began to flow from the crown of its head. Cloud could be mistaken, and it might only be the reflection of the moonlight, but the hair that rapidly grew past the thing’s shoulders, seemed to shimmer and shine like silver. It grew until it was falling all the way down its back and over its thighs, swaying softly in the night breeze.  
  
And then, with a few more twitches and adjustments, it stopped. It was done.  
  
Before his eyes, the bizarre mass of amorphous matter had transformed into the most beautiful man he had ever seen.  
  
No, that wasn’t right. This thing, whatever it was, was not human. In fact, this thing could hardly be real. Everything about it resembled a human, but it was too perfect, too off. It was almost human, but there was something terribly wrong with it – even when its flaw lay within its utter perfection.  
  
The man – the thing was completely still now. Holding his breath, Cloud watched in anticipation, of what was to come next. Although, he was terrified to find out. He should run, he should call someone for help, wake his mother. Should have done all that a long while ago. And now it was too late for Cloud to do any of that. His heart hammered in his chest.  
  
Several heartbeats passed. And then – it began to move anew, to sigh and shiver with relief as if it had just drawn its very first breath.  
  
Then its eyelids began to quiver and flutter open, revealing specks of intense green that alone were enough to illuminate the darkness.  
  
The man? The thing? Whatever it was blinked once – twice – and then – looked straight at him, with an ominous smile playing wickedly on its freshly formed, perfectly curved lips.  
  
All of a sudden, Cloud was overcome with an all-consuming wave of fear and nausea – and was there a smooth, low voice calling out to him? – Cloud’s vision began to swam, his knees gave way, he was falling and then – the world went black.


	2. The Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A crater has appeared, people are puzzled, weird things start happening.
> 
> additional warnings for this chapter:  
> blood, self-harm (caused by cosmic horror related compulsive behaviours)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I said that I expected the new chapter to be up within a week, that might have been a slight miscalculation on my part.  
> I'm honestly so sorry! I was hit with sudden inspiration for where I want to go with this story and I knew I needed time to work that out if I want do it right. And then I had to finish my Bachelor thesis first. So, that's what I did over the last six weeks.
> 
> Finally, when I looked at this fic again, I realised that what I wanted to do here would work better as it's own chapter, so I broke it off into even more parts (again). All to say, you could have had this update six weeks ago after all, but I messed up.  
> I do feel bad, believe me. So, thank you, if you had the patience to stick around!

Early the next day, Cloud’s mother found him curled up and unconscious on the wooden floorboards of his room. She had excitedly burst into his room to tell him about the strange crater that had apparently appeared overnight in one of their nearby fields but was instead shocked by finding her son in such an unusual position. She was seriously troubled by her find and had equal troubles in waking him at first, shaking him by the shoulders and repeatedly calling his name, but it took significant effort to rouse him from his sleep. When Cloud finally opened his eyes with a groan and some mild complaining and cursing, he found that there was a dull throbbing in his head, while his neck felt significantly stiff from sleeping on the hardwood floor. There was also a faint arhythmic ringing in his ears that wouldn’t leave him alone for the rest of the day and that made it incredibly hard to concentrate on anything.  
  
His mother was incredibly concerned for his well-being but to her questions on what had happened and why he hadn’t been in his bed, he didn’t really have an answer. Or did he? Last night’s events, the peculiar incident that had occurred in the middle of the night, the noise followed by lights, followed by a crash, followed by silence, followed by even more – events, all of which Cloud tried to repress to the best of his abilities, remained terribly vivid in his memories. Cloud simply couldn't tell her what he had experienced, he lacked the courage to do so as much as he lacked the words. How could any of it have been real, especially – Cloud shuddered at the thought. The memory of impossibly green eyes calling him through the darkness made him feel sick and the ringing in his ears intensify. No, there was no way he could tell any of this to his mother. She wouldn’t believe him. Or worse, she might believe him, and it would deeply disturb her, and he couldn’t bring such worry upon her.  
  
Cloud had half a mind to blame all of it on being some weird nightmare, no matter how real it all had felt. What else was one to do upon experiencing such indisputable impossibility?

Under much insistence of his mother that he go and look at the unusual hole himself, Cloud let himself get dragged outside. The fresh air felt especially chilly this cursed morning. Granted, he was still only dressed in his sleepwear, hastily thrown on shoes, and a light jacket. However, as he stood outside and gazed into the hole as if it were the deepest abyss, Cloud suspected that the chill and the goose pumps that had appeared on his skin had little to do with his lack of an adequate wardrobe.  
  
Because, here it was: the undeniable proof, that _something_ had happened last night. The crater itself was deeper than Cloud had estimated from his observations. What struck Cloud immediately, was the sulphurous smell that hang thick in the air. After breathing it in for a while, it made his head spin unpleasantly. The air around the hole seemed to prickle with static. Or maybe that way just Cloud's nerves and he wasn't sure, if he wanted to ask if his mother whether she could feel it, too. In case she couldn't. The last thing he needed was anyone accusing him of hysteria.  
  
The surrounding earth was darkened, and eerily burned, the crops were bent as if blown away by the forces of a large impact. So far, all the evidence on the site seemed to support what Cloud remembered about last night's events, which was not any type of revelation that he found particularly comforting. The crash at least, that much Cloud had to admit, must have happened.  
  
The only comforting thought that did remain was that his mind must have warped the accident into something other, something far more wicked. He must have seen the meteor fall and – as embarrassing as that was in itself – must have fallen unconscious from the shock of such an unusual and unexpected event and his unconscious must have spun the whole experience into weird images of even weirder and more inexplicable things, adding some dramatic flair to what was essentially just a fever dream. The headaches and this strange case of tinnitus were just the natural results of the loud noise from the crash and a restless night on the floor.  
  
Nonetheless, flashes of shifting, convulsing masses, inhuman and abnormal body parts and grotesque transformations constantly threatened to resurface into Cloud’s consciousness. He tried to ignore the churning of his stomach. After all, there had so far not been time for breakfast either.  
  
Consequently, Cloud could offer his mother no explanation to what had happened and after a lot of shrugging and uninformative, inexpressive noises as answers to her insistent questioning, she let him go back to the house, where he took what was probably the longest shower of his life. He felt exceptionally dirty this fine late-summer morning.  
  
And with that, Cloud would have wished that the whole story would find its end, but to his utter dismay, it didn’t. Far from it.  
  
While Cloud had been busy trying to forcefully eject all the icky impressions and sensations from his being by washing them down the shower drain under a steady onslaught of water so warm it turned his skin bright red, his mother had been rather busy making telephone calls. As many as she possibly could, as it turned out, when Cloud finally emerged from the bathroom with a wall of steam escaping after him out into the hallway.  
  
By late mid-morning a small crowd had gathered around the crater: two local policemen, some of their most immediate farming neighbours, a couple of family friends that lived in town, the town’s mayor, Mrs. Strife, and finally, Cloud himself. Cloud had protested loudly, exclaiming he had already seen the hole and that it hardly could have changed since earlier this day. At least, he seriously hoped it had not changed since earlier. Cloud wasn’t sure he could have handled the alternative. Despite a good dozen people having converged around the pit, no one had anything of value to offer on the subject matter. There was a lot of wild head scratching and wilder theories. None of them came even close to – the truth, however. And Cloud was not going to tell anyone what he had witnessed, or imagined having witnessed. Most of it, he tried to reassure himself, was a hazy blur in his head anyways.  
  
Cloud’s own personal interest in forgetting all about the hole as quickly as possible was profoundly sabotaged by everyone present and his proposal, they should just all get some shovels, fill it with dirt and call it a day, was pointedly ignored by all the nosey onlookers. And things got only worse, as the hole seemed to attract more and more people, as the day progressed.

A reporter from the local newspaper arrived with some delay (there really wasn't much of interest happening in that area and a big crater appearing in a field overnight, seemingly without explanation, or at least without a known explanation, was by far the most exciting thing to have happened in quite a while). The man asked both Cloud and his mother a whole bunch of questions to all of which Cloud had the same answer – "No." – and after a while the man grew frustrated, instead settling on interviewing the ‘experts’ that had also joined the crash site around noon.

The so-called ‘experts’ were a number of scientists employed at the small, chronically underfunded, university belonging to the nearest larger city. None of them were researching anything even remotely related to astronomy or cosmology, but that didn’t stop any of them from collecting samples, investigating, and falling into immediate heated debates, completely void of substance or purpose.  
  
Some rocky remnants of material were found around the pit that shimmered in strange almost metallic colours and people were reluctant to touch them and the experts present were quick to advise anybody against doing so. Various measurements and experiments were conducted on site, with all kinds of strange instruments the purpose and function of which Cloud could only guess at. It was all very silly in Cloud’s humble opinion. As much as the whole thing had disturbed him and how much it still haunted his mind, the spectacle and the attention the people were giving what was essentially a big hole in a field, was a bit much – even when Cloud himself probably had the most cause to believe that there was something very, very wrong with this alleged meteor crash.  
  
His mother on the other hand was more annoyed by having her farm bustle with strangers all day long: "How is one supposed to get anything done like this? With all these people running about?" She was visibly relieved when all the commotion slowly subsided over the course of the following week. Cloud had to bite his lip on multiple occasions to stop himself from reminding her that it was her who had called all these people in the first place.  
  
They had also detected unusual and alarming levels - "Not _that_ alarming, Ma'am, you are quite safe, we can assure you." - of radiation around the crater. Upon hearing this, the Strifes had exchanged doubtful glances with each other and wordlessly agreed that it was probably for the better not to go near the crater for the foreseeable future. Albeit, for slightly differing yet aligned reasons.  
  
Despite all the fuss that was made about the whole incident, especially during the first week or so after it had all happened, nothing much seemed to come from it. The radiation, the gross smell – all these only raised more and more questions for the investigators and the scientists. Even more peculiar was the case of the samples taken from the crash site. Apparently, before any real testing could have been done, right under the watchful eyes of the scientists, they had vanished without a trace. And no one had an explanation as to how or why. The most widespread theory was that they were of some unknown element which did not naturally occur on this planet and contact with some or another particle in the air, which had triggered a particular chemical reaction to occur, had then caused them to evaporate. At least, that was what Cloud's mother had read him from the newspaper one morning, while Cloud was simply trying to get, and keep, his scrambled eggs in his stomach, which immediately rebelled upon being reminded of – everything.  
  
And really, the vanishing of the samples could have finally been the end of everything. But again, it wasn’t. There was something Cloud could not tell his mother. Something new and disturbing.  
  
It hadn’t started immediately after the initial night. There was a bit of a delay, but when things had started to fall back into the usual routine of their farm life, Cloud had started to notice a series of strange events.  
  
The first one of which was something his mother took note of as well: around the crater their crops started dying off. At first it hadn’t been that obvious, because the crops directly surrounding it had been bent, burned, and crushed in a fairly large radius. However, now, the crops that had remained standing and unmarred soon turned dark, bit by bit, while the radius of dying plants grew bigger and bigger. So, despite his better judgement, Cloud had ventured near the crater again to confirm his suspicions. He crouched down, inspecting the earth and up close he could discern that it looked darker as well, drier. The land around the hole was blighted earth – and it spread. Slowly, infectious, eating away at everything living, as if something was sucking the land dry of its life force. Pushing himself up, he felt a shudder running down his neck and back down again. Suddenly overcome with the feeling of being watched, he looked around, but there was no one. Exposed and vulnerable, he stood alone in a field that was dying around him, the wind stroking uncomfortably through his hair.  
  
When Cloud dared to reach out for one of the brown and brittle looking plants, it crumbled into a fine dust as soon as it made contact with his skin. Cloud tried brushing it of on his pants, but a fine smear of ash must have remained, because by the time noon came around, the skin on his fingers and palm had broken out in an aggressive rash that itched and burned and the more Cloud scratched at it, the worse it got. He tried calming the rash and the burning under the cold water of the bathroom sink, but it offered no relief. There was a distinct and disturbing thought in Cloud’s mind that it would get better if he only got the skin off completely. So, he resumed to scratching at it and he scratched and scratched until his hands and the sink turned equally bloody and his mother, who found him mutilating his hands in the bathroom, had to pry his own hands away from him, forcing a thick cream onto the wounds and bandaging him up tightly.   
  
A severe allergic reaction, she told him. Or, he must have touched a poisonous plant on accident.  
  
Cloud just agreed with her and nodded absentmindedly, as he stood in the doorframe, watching her wipe his blood from the bathroom tiles with a soggy kitchen rag. Somehow, no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t bring himself to tell her that it had been the damned field, that damned crater, and that something was damned wrong with this whole damned thing.

When Cloud awoke the next morning, his hands seemed fine. The rash was gone, and the scratches looked less horrifying, but Cloud was out of commission doing heavy work for a few more days.

Furthermore, Cloud had become incredibly jumpy the days following the crash. Now, every sound, every movement was a potential threat, the silence of the night held potential for disturbing noises and every creak that was to be expected on a farm threatened to spill over into violent madness – although, at first, it didn’t. The apprehension was almost worse when there was no resolution. Cloud did not know what he was expecting to happen, what he was waiting for, what he should be afraid of exactly. He had lived on the farm his entire life and even though it was remote and technically surrounded by nothing but wilderness and open fields, he had never been afraid. There were local legends and folklore of cryptids, killers, and the like, but those weren’t scary, they just came with the locality. That was his home. Now, everything seemed vaguely off. It was his home, but slightly to the left.  
  
With increasing frequency, strange thoughts began creeping up in Cloud’s head. He would be feeding the chickens, or sweep the yard and unexpected flashes of writhing, bulging, merging flesh, impossibly green eyes and lustrous lips smiling wickedly would push forward from the depths of his unconscious into the forefront of his mind and his breathing would hitch and he would start shaking. He had dropped three buckets within four days, because he forgot how to hold things under the sudden resurgence of these images.  
  
And once again, if that had been all – if that had been all, then maybe Cloud would have been able to think he was merely suffering the aftereffects of an especially stubborn and terrible fever dream.  
  
Cloud would soon learn how wrong he had been to hope for an anticlimactic end to this story and he would have laughed about his foolishness, if he had still remembered how to. The apprehension would find its inevitable resolution, making Cloud long for living in vague, unsubstantiated fear instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea I've had which put this fic on hold while I was finishing my BA is going to be implemented in the next chapter. I have started working it, I know what I want to do with it. I just need to get it done. We'll see how that works out. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has the patience to endure erractic and unpredictable updating schedules. You're amazing!

**Author's Note:**

> I can't say when chapter two is going to come out exactly, but it is going to go up eventually.  
> It is partially written already, so I can vaguely promise that it might possibly/probably be going to go up next week. 
> 
> I expect three chapters in total, but who's to say. Also: rating is almost guaranteed to go up to E.  
> When/if it does, you will get a fair warning beforehand and I'll add/adjust all appropriate warnings and tags. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, I hope I got you interested enough to maybe stick around for this and, hopefully, see you soon!
> 
> Feedback, comments, kudos, and everything else really, is always welcome!  
> I also usually reply to comments! (Fair warning?)
> 
> You can also always hit me up on my Twitter: @FL3ANC3! 
> 
> I'll post another shorter one shot for Day 7 of Sephiroth Week tomorrow, completely unrelated to this.


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